KOCHI: The sports stores in the city might want to stock up on football spikes, cricket kits and shuttle bats. Cool bars too can follow suit and boost their supplies of power bars and health drinks, for it is the season of summer camps.
With schools closing for vacation, enrolment in summer sports camps is surging across the city, forcing some clubs and academies to hire more professional assistance to meet the sudden influx of trainees.
At the Regional Sports Centre at Kadavantra, which provides coaching camps in about 30 disciplines including taekwondo and aero-modelling, the total number of those enrolled has increased from 3,000 last year to 3,500 this time.
While, cricket, having already established itself as the foremost choice of sports for aspiring players, did not draw more than its regular share of summer camp-goers despite the ICC World Cup, football coaches say the ISL last year is to blame for them having to work overtime the next two months.
Interestingly, coaches like former India player C V Seena are only happy to stretch themselves. “The more, the better,” said Seena, who is imparting football lessons to a day-by-day growing group of youngsters at the K Ambujakshan Memorial Training Centre’s summer camp in Maradu.“Of the 200-odd trainees I have for this summer, there are a few who come as far as from Ezhupunna and Paravoor. For the two-hour camp from 7 to 9 every morning, they travel twice as much time daily,” Seena said.
According to K Ravindran, coach at the Sacred Hearts Football Academy in Thevara, the Indian Super League has renewed the interest for football among the youngsters last year and is possibly the reason that draws a higher number of youngsters to football camps.
“We have no specific summer programme at our academy, but on account of the increase in number of children seeking provisional coaching during the summer vacation, we have opened slots in the regular programme,” Ravindran said.
The FF Academy in Eloor had to rope in two pair of specialised hands to deal with the number of students who have come forward to join the summer camp. “The number is a bit overwhelming and it took us by surprise because the interest was never this high like it is this time,” said Walter Antony, coach and one of the founding members of the academy.
However, neither the Kerala Football Association nor the Ernakulam District Football Association has bothered to chart out any summer coaching programme, despite the existence of a very noticeable wave of football enthusiasm whipped up by the Indian Super League.
In contrast, the Kerala Cricket Association has elaborate provisional coaching plans for this summer.
Like always, the cricket clubs too are in the forefront, offering two-weeks to almost month-long summer camps.
In one camp or the other, the kids in the city are sweating it out this summer, and that is all that matters.